Our agents have been killing it on Facebook this year. As the social giant rolls out more and more stellar features to help businesses (and agents) up our ad and marketing game, Facebook is doing the same with its sister network, Instagram.

We will always suggest that you master one lead-generating social platform before moving on to conquer next, so definitely continue to familiarize yourself with the many capabilities of Facebook. However…

If you:

A) Have your Facebook game on lock and are looking to add another lead gen source to your digital marketing arsenal

OR

B) Are feeling fed up with Facebook, enjoy visual communication and want to dominate on a new social channel

Then this post is for you. Read on for the latest ways to harness Instagram for leads and stats to prove its power and marketing potential for real estate agents.

What’s The Deal?

For many marketers, business owners, agents and entrepreneurs, Instagram is an ideal advertising platform.

You get the reach of Facebook, but can cut through all the excess noise by only choosing to follow certain accounts. Instagram Stories also pulls in Snapchat’s greatest feature to give users the best of both worlds.

Here’s What You Need to Know

Last week, Adespresso published this blog outlining all of the most recent updates Instagram has rolled out in 2017.

By far, the biggest change is that Lead Ads are now available on Instagram.

And this is exactly why we suggest tackling Facebook first. If you’re familiar with their ad platform, then it’ll be that much easier for you to create your first Lead Ad on Instagram.

Because you’ll create this ad from start to finish on Facebook.

Go into your Facebook Ad Manager like usual and select Lead generation.

You’ll then create an audience like usual or you can use one you’ve already saved. Then just adjust your Placement.

If you’re not loving the engagement, or lack thereof, you’re seeing on Facebook right now this is a great way to get a better idea of where your audience is actually spending their time. If you get more leads through these Instagram updates you can direct your future efforts there. If not, then you’ll know that you’ve got to keep honing your Facebook skills until you activate your audience and start getting more qualified leads.

A Privacy Policy (from your website) is required to run this ad so make sure you’re covered there. If you’ve got a LeadSite, you’re good to go.

You can insert 1-3 questions, but don’t get too in depth here. You want to make this information-collecting process as easy as possible!

Convenience will always mean more Conversions.

Become A Storyteller

Analytics don’t lie. Instagram’s Story feature is snapping up Snapchat’s traffic like crazy and big-name brands have noticed a major dip in Snapchat engagement.

Bustle has 1.4 million+ Instagram followers and has 100% committed to sharing Stories with them 5-6 times every week.

If you’re still working up to posting Youtube videos, this is a great introduction to video marketing. You can practice recording and find your voice. Heck, you may even find a broader audience to take with you when you do start your Youtube channel. Like Snapchat, Instagram stories are only live for 24 hours. And unlike Facebook, Instagram live videos disappear when you stop streaming.

Basically, there’s a lot less commitment involved. You can still see how many people have watched your video and so you’ll be able to get an idea of what kind of video content is and is not appealing to your audience.

This article from Paradym perfectly summed up the perks of Instagram Stories:

You can write and draw directly on the photo/video Story itself

Stories appear at the top of your followers’ Instagram feed

And only stay for 24 hours, and are then removed

Includes a built-in call-to-action in the form of a “send message” feature, making it easy to interact with the Story’s creator

We’re also keeping a close eye on Instagram Live — along with Facebook and Twitter live video. These tools absolutely have the ability to revolutionize marketing! As a whole, social media is moving toward functioning more in real-time. This is also apparent in online shopping – with chat bots and automated messaging now available to give leads an immediate response and instantaneous results.

Coming Soon

According to The Verge, another Instagram update coming is a new posting option that will allow users to post multiple photos and videos at once. Essentially, it’s a version of Facebook’s carousel ad.

At this time, however, this multi-photo option will function as a post that all users can use — as opposed to the carousel feature that is only available as a Facebook ad.

Imagine being able to showcase the best features of the interior and exterior of a listing to your entire Instagram audience for free! All they’d have to do is swipe right to see the photos and then leave a comment or shoot you a quick direct message to take action.

Instagram By The Numbers

If you’re not convinced of the lead -generating potential of these Instagram updates, take a look at these stats.

Facebook bought Instagram for 1 billion dollars

Instagram has 600 Million monthly active users

300 Million of those users log on each day

Versus the 100 million who use SnapChat daily

4.2 billion is the number of Likes Instagram sees each day

And 95 million photo uploads

20% of all internet users are on Instagram

Instagram is expected to generate about $1.5 billion in mobile advertising sales this year

And $5 billion in 2018

48.8% of brands are on Instagram

That number is projected to rise to 70.7% next year

Posts with at least one hashtag average 12.6% more engagement

When Instagram introduced videos, 5 million videos were uploaded in the first 24 hours